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Anna Deavere Smith - Blog

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Transcript of conversation with Anna Deveare Smith

Anna Deveare Smith: I'm a student of expression and the thing that kicked my interest off further was in actually my classical training at the American Conservatory Theater, studying Shakespeare. And part of Shakespeare's extraordinary genius was his attention to how people actually speak; not what they're saying but how they express themselves and what that tells you about not just their social place but also about their mental state. And so as far back as the '70s, I developed a keen interest in that and started interviewing people so that I could study exactly how people speak and what that would tell me about them, and also about the time they lived in.

As she explained in this clip, how people speak is just as important to her as what they say. [:45]